Ascendant

“Nice,” Nym said.

Bildar looked up from where he was cleaning dirt out of his ear. “Sorry, what was that?”

“Nothing. Just felt like the right thing to say in the moment.”

“Ugh, why do they always use wet, sloppy mud,” Bildar complained. “Well this isn’t coming out easily.”

He cast a quick spell and all of the dirt sloughed off him, but left the water behind. When the earth mage didn’t make a move to dry himself back out, Nym cast a small hydrokinesis spell and flicked the water away. Bildar smirked and shook his head. “Casting without a license,” he said, clicking his tongue. “God bless you for that, young sir.”

“I think I’m going to take off early today,” Nym told him. “I… I’ve got a lot to think about.”

“You do that. Keep your practicing outside of the city too. We’ll see you tomorrow?”

Nym didn’t hesitate. “Definitely.”

 “Good. Go on then. See you tomorrow.”

Nym waved goodbye to Ophelia and the twins, then set out through the city. He did another lap past the Silk Box, still nothing, and headed out of town. Thrakus was significantly warmer than Abilanth, but it was still the end of winter. Things were just starting to thaw, and he didn’t want to stay out quite so long this time.

Instead of practicing the spells he’d seen the earth mage crew use, Nym decided to try using his new-found understanding of elemental earth intent and construct building to repurpose another spell. He started with the basic frame work for an ice golem, but altered to be solid, full of arcana flavored with unyielding strength.

The construct remained the same, except for the parts that targeted snow and ice as the base materials, but the order in which he constructed it was completely different. His experience from his attempts to fuse a stone core into the ice golems gave him a good starting point to expand on, and once he thought about it, he was pretty sure he could make that work now that he better understood elemental earth manipulation.

Nym expected he’d have it figured out in a few hours. That was usually all it took to experiment, refine, test, and settle on a finalized construct when he was working on a spell. It had taken days to learn the original spell with an instructor dedicating all her time to help him, but this was just a modification to use earth and stone instead of ice and snow. It should be easy.

Six hours later, he was forced to admit the truth. It wasn’t easy and none of his ideas worked.

He gave up for the day, but was determined to figure it out. Maybe Bildar or Ophelia could point him in the right direction. Ice golems were useful in the winter, but it was fast turning into spring now and if he wanted to get any further use out of all the work he’d put into learning how to cast it, he needed to figure out the modification.

He was trudging back through Thrakus, muttering to himself and counting out steps on his fingers as he mentally reconfigured how each piece of the pattern needed to be placed, when a hand settled on his shoulders. “Hey, aren’t you that boy working for the Earth Shapers?”

Nym looked up and was surprised to find himself surrounded by three men. None of them looked familiar, but his first thought was that they were from the contractors guild and looking for trouble. Their guildmates getting tossed in the slammer apparently wasn’t enough of a message.

“Leave me alone,” he said, trying to jerk away from the man holding his shoulder. The man didn’t let go though. In fact, he squeezed harder to prevent Nym from escaping.

“That’s him. I recognize him from the crowd the other day.”

“What do you think they’d pay to get him back?”

The other two men looked surprised. “Ransom him, you mean? Might as well. They’re basically stealing the shims out of our pockets. As long as they don’t know who we are, we can make it work.”

“You’re the leftover idiots from the contractors guild,” Nym said. “Your whole ransom idea is stupid. I know who you are. I’ve seen your faces. Even if I hadn’t, it’s not like they don’t know you guys hate them. You’re the first people the constabulary will check.”

“Er… kid’s got a point, Tenny.”

“Don’t say my name, moron!”

“God give me patience,” Nym muttered. He waited a beat. “No? No patience at all? Fine. I’ll do it my way then.”

“What are you mumbling about?” the man holding Nym said.

Nym was not the same boy he’d been half a year ago when Senman tried to throw him off a cliff. He wasn’t even the same boy he’d been a few months ago when those brothel ‘recruiters’ had cornered him in an alley. He had options now. He could set the men on fire, or electrocute them, or just pick them up and drop them from fifty feet straight up. He could slice their skin open telekinetically, attack their minds and leave them dazed and drooling, or summon water to coat them, then freeze it solid. If he wanted to get creative, there were a few other options too.

In the interest of not being overtly obvious, Nym shaped little ridges in the road that cupped around the heel of each man’s foot, then gave them a telekinetic shove. The two men opposite him tripped over immediately, while the one holding him staggered and clenched down on Nym’s shoulder to keep his balance. Nym cast a quick, small slicing spell to slash across the hand squeezing him and the man let go.

Nym walked away while the three men hurried to get back on their feet. By the time they chased after him, he had already disappeared into the crowd and sat on a nearby roof, watching them.

“Idiots,” he said again.

“Who were they?” someone said.

Nym looked up to see a man leaning on the sill of a second-story window in the house next to the one he was sitting on. He seemed friendly enough, so Nym answered. “Just some guys who thought because they were bigger than me that they could do whatever they wanted. I’ll let someone know and it’ll look bad on their whole guild. Maybe they’ll get kicked out. Hah. That’d be funny.”

“You going to tell them how you used magic too?” the man asked.

“Nah. No license. That’d just get me in trouble.”

“You know you can use magic to defend yourself even if you don’t have a license, right?”

“Really?” Nym asked. “No, I didn’t know that. Still, no point in making things complicated. They tried to kidnap me, I got away. Wait, how’d you know I used magic?”

“You’re sitting on my neighbor’s roof, for one thing. For another, three adults against one kid usually ends in the three guys winning unless there’s magic involved.”

“Those are both good points. You’re pretty smart.”

“That’s what they pay me for. My name is Constable Berndart. How’d you like to take a walk with me?”

Nym’s face fell and he started rapidly considering the merits of blasting Berndart with a daze spell and running off. The constable started laughing and said, “You’re not in trouble, kid. I saw the whole thing. Come on, I’ll take you to the station house to file a report and we’ll send a few guys around to pick them up. It won’t take an hour of your time and it’ll get them off the street. Next time they might pick a kid who can’t defend himself.”

The constable’s words made sense, but Nym was still wary about walking into a building full of people who might try to arrest him. “Can’t you just make the report yourself? You saw everything.”

“I can corroborate your story. But you’re the one they tried to abduct and they’re already gone. Your descriptions will help us identify them and make sure we get the right people.”

Nym considered his options. He could simply fly away and never look back. That would, once again, put him against the law and he really didn’t want to be dealing with that for the fourth time. He could play along and hope everything happened just like Berndart said it would. That would be the easiest thing to do, so long as there wasn’t a wanted poster of him at the station that he would inconveniently stand next to for easy comparison.

“I’ll meet you on the street,” he said, hopping off the roof and floating down to the ground.

A minute later, the front door opened and Berndart walked out, his constable’s hat on his head and his jacket in his hands. He led Nym a few streets over and about six blocks closer to the center of the city before they stopped at a wide, squat brick building. It was two stories too, but took up an entire block by itself, and something about the architecture just reminded him of a big, fat toad.

“What’re you doing here, Berndart?” the constable at the desk asked when they walked in. “I thought you were off for the next two days.”

“I was, but then some idiots decided to try kidnapping this boy right in front of my house.”

They explained what had happened as best they could, with Nym reluctantly giving up the tale of his escape and his association with the earth mages that had led to him being targeted in the first place. When he was done, the constable on duty had him describe the three men, prompting Nym with a series of rapidfire questions.

“The first one, anything to distinguish him? Scars? Missing any fingers? Notches in his ear, missing teeth? And the one who grabbed you, was it his left or right hand you cut? I see. I see.”

The constable noted it all down and then called out another five men from a back room. “Go on down to the contractors guildhall and see if you can’t find three men matching this description,” he instructed. “They tried to abduct this kid off the street, and Constable Berndart here witnessed it happen.”

“You got it, chief.” The men saluted sharply and went off to make the arrests.

“See? Easy to do,” Berndart said. “Now we can wait here together if you’d like, or if you want to tell me where you live, we can have someone come round to collect you once we’ve brought them in so you can identify them and make sure we got the right guys.”

“Can I just come back in a few hours?” Nym asked.

“You could. Will you come back on your own?”

Nym’s insides squirmed. He wasn’t really planning to, didn’t want to. But he wanted to stay on the good side of the law for once, so he nodded. “Yeah. I just want to go tell my friends what happened so they can watch out for anyone else trying to mess with them.”

“Right, your friends the earth mages who are helping put up new buildings. What did you say they called their group again, the Earthbenders?”

“Earth Shapers,” Nym corrected. It seemed like a boring name to him, but they’d collectively decided on it a few years ago and that was what their business was officially called.

“Right, them. Actually, I’d kind of like to meet them myself. Do you mind if I go with you?”

“You do?” Nym asked, surprised. “Why?”

“Well they’re involved in this whole mess too, aren’t they? This only happened because they’re poaching the contractors guild business. I’m not saying they’re in the wrong here, just that we need to get this whole thing settled before it escalates any further.”

Nym squinted at the constable. “Isn’t it your day off?”

Constable Berndart just rolled his eyes. “Come on, Ermy. Let’s go talk to your friends and see if we can find some way to get this straightened out without it coming to blows in the streets.”